The sweep of the oars and the plunge of the body of Antonio had been blended in a common wash of the surge.  When the fisherman came to the surface after his fall, he was alone in the centre of the vast but tranquil sheet of water.  There might have been a glimmering of hope as he arose from the darkness of the sea to the bright beauty of that moonlit night.  But the sleeping domes were too far for human strength, and the gondolas were sweeping madly towards the town.  He turned, and swimming feebly, for hunger and previous exertion had undermined his strength, he bent his eye on the dark spot which he had constantly recognised as the boat of the Bravo.

Jacopo had not ceased to watch the interview with the utmost intentness of his faculties.  Favored by position, he could see without being distinctly visible.  He saw the Carmelite pronouncing the absolution, and he witnessed the approach of the larger boat.  He heard a plunge heavier than that of falling oars, and he saw the gondola of Antonio towing away empty.  The crew of the Republic had scarcely swept the Lagunes with their oar-blades before his own stirred the water.

“Jacopo!—­Jacopo!” came fearfully and faintly to his ears.

The voice was known, and the occasion thoroughly understood.  The cry of distress was succeeded by the rush of the water, as it piled before the beak of the Bravo’s gondola.  The sound of the parted element was like the sighing of a breeze.  Ripples and bubbles were left behind, as the driven scud floats past the stars, and all those muscles which had once before that day been so finely developed in the race of the gondoliers, were now expanded, seemingly in twofold volumes.  Energy and skill were in every stroke, and the dark spot came down the streak of light, like the swallow touching the water with its wing.

“Hither, Jacopo—­thou steerest wide!”

The beak of the gondola turned, and the glaring eye of the Bravo caught a glimpse of the fisherman’s head.

“Quickly, good Jacopo,—­I fail!”

The murmuring of the water again drowned the stifled words.  The efforts of the oar were frenzied, and at each stroke the light gondola appeared to rise from its element.

“Jacopo—­hither—­dear Jacopo!”

“The mother of God aid thee, fisherman!—­I come.”

“Jacopo—­the boy!—­the boy!”

The water gurgled; an arm was visible in the air, and it disappeared.  The gondola drove upon the spot where the limb had just been visible, and a backward stroke, that caused the ashen blade to bend like a reed, laid the trembling boat motionless.  The furious action threw the Lagune into ebullition, but, when the foam subsided, it lay calm as the blue and peaceful vault it reflected.

“Antonio!”—­burst from the lips of the Bravo.

A frightful silence succeeded the call.  There was neither answer nor human form.  Jacopo compressed the handle of his oar with fingers of iron, and his own breathing caused him to start.  On every side he bent a frenzied eye, and on every side he beheld the profound repose of that treacherous element which is so terrible in its wrath.  Like the human heart, it seemed to sympathize with the tranquil beauty of the midnight view; but, like the human heart, it kept its own fearful secrets.